On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 12:38 PM, Matthew Flatt <mflatt at cs.utah.edu> wrote:
> Here are the plausible options we came up with on the IRC channel:
>> 1: Keep `racket' plus a separate command tool
> 1A: Keep `rico' as the command tool (i.e., status quo)
> 1B: Rename `rico' to `racket-tool'
>> 2: Rename `racket' to `racket-run', rename `rico' to `racket', add a
> `racket run' command, and let `racket' (no command) still provide a
> REPL
>> 3: Like 2, but let `racket' guess whether its first argument is a
> command or a file name so that `racket <file>' often works (i.e.,
> the most recent proposal, but amended with `racket-run' for
> scripts)
>> 1A is obviously best, because it fits existing conventions.
> 1A is obviously worst, because `rico' doesn't contain "Racket".
>> 1B acceptably fixes the problem with `rico' by adding "racket".
> 1B leaves us with an unacceptably long and ugly tool name, as will
> anything that starts "racket".
>> 2 works well, since it makes `racket' the one executable for
> everything.
> 2 doesn't work, because users expect `racket <file>' to to run the
> file.
>> 3 looks like the best combination; it almost always does what you'd
> expect, and the only real trouble shows up with people who put "." in
> their PATH, which is a typical newbie mistake that we shouldn't try
> to accommodate. [But I have "." in my PATH.]
> 3 looks suspiciously like an attempt to innovate; it's unusual, it has
> surprising corner cases, and it interacts awkwardly with tab
> completion.
'(1A 2 1B 3)
--Carl